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Sonate-fantaisie in G sharp minor, Op posth.

Introduction

The Sonate-Fantaisie in G sharp minor (1886), is a work which Scriabin never published. He wrote it at the age of fourteen and dedicated it to Natalya Sekerina, the sweetheart of his adolescence. The Sonata shows an astonishingly sure hand in the natural progression of one idea from another. A portentous introduction leads to a gentle, idyllic first movement highly reminiscent of Chopin in its flow of florid melody. This was the time in Scriabin’s life when he fell in love with Chopin’s music and would go to sleep with a volume of Chopin under his pillow. The opening Andante gives way to a rather more agitated sonata movement. The cadence theme, especially in its return where it is accompanied by simple chords rather than flowing accompaniment figures, has a touch of the mazurka about it—Scriabin wrote twenty-one mazurkas and three impromptus à la mazur between 1887 and 1903. The development section, with its broken tenths in the left hand and the polyphony in the treble, is most original and characteristic in its sonorities. The end artfully and subtly introduces a reminiscence, not of the opening bars, but of an ensuing idea from the introduction. Its chromaticism is also highly characteristic, and it is not surprising that it was this idea that the young composer chose to bring back.

Recordings

'He commands the four qualities that a Scriabin interpreter must have: a feverish intensity, a manic vision, a sovereign and fastidious command of the ...'Hamelin rises to the challenges of this music with complete mastery. But his is more than a purely technical triumph (though the effortless of his pl ...» More

'A programme of fascinating rarities played with a touching sensitivity and affection … This record is a most impressive achievement, as beautifu ...'This is remarkably attractive music. Warmly recommended' (Fanfare, USA)» More

Details

Compared to the two mazurkas, the Sonate-fantaisie (1886) is far more ambitious. It is dedicated to Scriabin’s first sweetheart, Natalya Sekerina, whose romantic linkage to Scriabin was only revealed by the discovery in 1922 of his love-letters to her. The emotionally charged opening is remarkable for a fourteen-year-old but Scriabin’s eroticism had early roots. He later told Sabaneyev, his biographer, that at the age of nine he was ‘in love in the full sense of the word’. Alongside the increased emotional sophistication, there is also a transformation in the piano-writing. Scriabin seems to be stretching, quite literally, the physical demands on the performer. Massive chords involving stretches of up to a twelfth, together with single-hand scale passages in tenths are used with a casual indifference to their physical demands. Though Scriabin’s hands were said to have been able to stretch only an octave (even accounting for exaggeration, it is undeniable that he had small hands), his use of rubato and mastery of the sustaining pedal, widely admired and commented upon, provided a means to compensate for this disadvantage. With this Sonate-fantaisie Scriabin seems to be proving that his small hands are of no disadvantage to him and at the same time challenging other performers to match him. It is also worth remembering that Scriabin’s chief rival at this time, and later at the Moscow Conservatory, was Sergei Rachmaninov, whose hands were as famously large as Scriabin’s were small—though this early rivalry seems not to have affected their future friendship.